She put both her hands on his shoulders and gazed at him long, with a deep look of ecstasy and yet searchingly. She scrutinized his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She compared, as she did at every interview with him, the image her fancy painted of him (incomparably finer than, and impossible in actual existence) with his real self.
Leo TolstoyIn our age the common religious perception of men is the consciousness of the brotherhood of man - we know that the well-being of man lies in the union with his fellow men. True science should indicate the various methods of applying this consciousness to life. Art should transform this perception into feeling.
Leo TolstoyInstead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.
Leo TolstoyWhat an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.
Leo Tolstoy